See Katee Sackhoff Build Her Own Real Lightsaber
The Mandalorian star Katee Sackhoff built her own lightsaber at Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge.
The Mandalorian’s Katee Sackhoff is as much a fan of Star Wars as she is a star, evidenced by her delight at hefting a real-life lightsaber. The Battlestar Galactica actress posted a video of herself at the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge theme park building her own lightsaber, as visitors to the attraction can do. Katee Sackhoff’s lightsaber has a green blade (indicating that she is a Jedi consular, meaning her Force powers tended toward the philosophical) and what appears to be a furry pom-pom at the other end, but it is the happy look on her face that is really the great part.
The short video posted to Katee Sackhoff’s Instagram (where she frequently posts things like pictures of herself in a bubble bath for charitable causes) first shows the star posing with her co-star Din Djarin, the Mandalorian himself. Of course, it is definitely a Disney employee in the beskar armor rather than series star Pedro Pascal (the decidedly non-animate Grogu tucked in his satchel is a dead giveaway), but still pretty cool to see. Following that, we see Katee Sackhoff actually putting together her lightsaber, then doing a quick Jedi fighting stance in what looks like classic Shii-Cho form.
While attendees of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge other than Katee Sackhoff can all build their own lightsabers (presumably for an exorbitant Disney price), it was recently demonstrated that Lucasfilm is actually working on the real thing. At the SXSW festival, Disney Parks and Experience Chairman Josh D’Amaro demonstrated what sure looked like an actually functioning, retractable lightsaber, though he stopped short of cutting anyone in half, Darth Maul-style. It seems that this is likely the new model of lightsaber that will be offered in Star Wars theme parks in the near future, rather than the solid-bladed ones that Katee Sackhoff now has.
Katee Sackhoff is currently starring in the third season of The Mandalorian on Disney+, reprising the role of Mandalorian partisan warrior Bo-Katan Kryze from Star Wars: The Clone Wars, this time in live-action. She first appeared in the second season of the show and promises to be one of the central figures of the show for at least the current story arc, which has Din Djarin traveling to his ancestral home planet of Mandalore.
As explained within canon, children adopted by Mandalorians and raised in The Way are considered fully of the race themselves, despite not being born on Mandalore like Katee Sackhoff’s character. Upon first release, The Mandalorian immediately became a massive hit and Disney+’s de facto flagship Star Wars series; however, the third season finally seems to be losing some viewers, perhaps due in part to the less-than-stellar premiere episode of the show.
It also seems that Disney looks to be tightening belts across the board, including the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and Galactic Voyage attractions, the latter of which is cutting down its “experiences” already. If Star Wars fans want to get lightsabers like Katee Sackhoff, they might need to hurry.
